To honor Mother's Day, we are sharing a few stories over the next few weeks that honor our amazing MST mothers. Today we are sharing a story of one mom in Louisiana who changed her life to help her son
Jared had two weeks to produce a clean drug screen for drug court, or he was facing six months in detention. Two weeks is not a lot of time, especially when he was smoking many bowls of marijuana and half-a-pack of cigarettes every day. On top of that, he had already missed more than 20 days of school, and it was only November. I knew that his truancy also needed to be addressed, but as his Multisystemic Therapy (MST) therapist, I had to focus first and foremost on helping Jared get clean for his drug screen.
It was a hard two weeks. Mom, who was also using marijuana, was frustrated. Jared was frustrated. Drug court was frustrated. The frustration was all understandable, and during that time, I was the only one with hope. I knew we could do it, but I also knew I needed to be honest with Jared about how high the stakes were. In the end, the choice was theirs: The entire family had to change their behavior and help Jared get clean, or they would be helping him pack his bags for detention.
